One of Europe’s most outstanding experts
on the Middle East, Professor Guenter Meyer,
addresses in this exclusive in-depth interview for
Asia Times Online the Syrian civil war and its
international dimensions.

Professor Dr
Guenter Meyer has for almost 40 years carried out
empirical research on the social, economic and
political development in Arab countries and has
published more than 150 books and articles,
especially on Syria, Egypt, Yemen and the Gulf
Cooperation Council countries. He directs the
Center for Research on the Arab World at the
Johannes Gutenberg

University in Mainz, Germany,
which is one of the world's leading information
centers for the dissemination of news and research
on the Middle East. Professor Meyer is chairman of
the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO),
president of the European Association for Middle
Eastern Studies (EURAMES), and chairman of the
International Advisory Council of the World
Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES).

Lars Schall: Professor
Meyer, since our perceptions are framed by the
media, how do you feel about the coverage of the
conflict in Syria in the Western media?

Guenter Meyer: My
perceptions are not only framed by the media, but
also by my own experience in Syria and by contact
with Syrians, other Arab experts and political
activists of the Arab spring. The information I
receive from these sources and also from Arab news
media covers a much wider range of views and
assessments than the rather one-sided reporting in
the majority of the Western media.

LS: What kind of things do
you have to criticize in particular?

GM: Until recently
mainstream reporting in most Western media was
clearly biased. It focused mainly on the
distinction between the "bad" Syrian regime, which
has to be toppled, and the "good" opposition,
which has to be supported because it is fighting
against a corrupt, authoritarian and brutal
government. This perception has changed gradually
during the past few months. More and more media
are reporting about the conflicting interests of
the highly fragmented oppositional groups as well
as about the atrocities of the rebel groups and
their crimes committed against the civilian
population, especially against Alawites but also
against Christians.

The influx of Salafis,
jihadis and followers of al-Qaeda and the
expectation that radical Sunni Islamists will
control Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad
are disturbing themes that are now also reported
in Western media. After a long delay, the news
coverage of the development in Syria does no
longer focus only on spreading the political view
of the "Friends of Syria", but has started to
provide a more comprehensive picture about the
highly complex situation in Syria.

Nevertheless, there is still a bias when
it comes to the reporting of massacres. The
majority of Western media - and also Western
governments - tend to take the information offered
by oppositional sources for granted that
government forces, in particular the Shabiha
militia, are responsible for the cruel killings of
civilians, many of them women and children. At the
same time, evidences of a systematic "massacre
marketing strategy" [1] by the rebels are rejected
as propaganda of the Assad regime. It is obvious
that in many cases, especially in the massacres
with the highest number of victims at Houla [2]
and Daraya [3] oppositional forces committed
brutal crimes against civilians in order just to
blame the government for these massacres. Through
this strategy they try to manipulate public
opinion and influence political decision making
against the Syrian regime.

LS: Would you say that those
who want to explore the interests that collide in
the conflict in Syria would do well to examine the
geopolitical importance of Syria for the Eurasian
energy chessboard? I mean, ultimately Syria is a
main transport hub for future oil and gas
pipelines, right?

GM:
Whenever you try to analyze political conflicts in
the Middle East and get to the bottom you are
likely to find oil or gas. The present conflict
has been linked to Syria's role as transit country
for Iranian gas export. Last year, a contract was
signed between Iran, Iraq and Syria to build a
natural gas pipeline by 2016 from Iran's giant
South Pars field to the Syrian Mediterranean coast
in order to supply Lebanon and Europa with gas. As
a result Turkey would loose her highly profitable
and political important position as the dominant
transit country for gas from Russia and the
Caspian Basin. [4]

Could this expected
competition have been a reason for the Turkish
government to give up its good relations with the
Syrian regime and support the opposition? This is
rather unlikely. During the last few years, Iran
has signed numerous Memoranda of Understanding and
contracts with foreign governments and companies
to exploit Iranian gas and oil fields and to build
pipelines. None of these schemes has been
executed, as a result of the US embargo against
Iran. Therefore, it has to be supposed that the
contract to build a pipeline to Syria was signed
mainly for domestic political reasons of the
Iranian government. One has also to question the
economic viability of this project. Why should gas
from Southern Iran be exported to Europe when the
highest demand for Iranian gas comes from
neighboring Pakistan and India?

There is
another project that would make much more sense.
In 2009, Qatar had proposed to build a pipeline
from the emirate's giant gas fields via Syria to
Turkey to be connected with other pipelines to
Europe. [5] Based on this scheme, Assad loyalists
had claimed that the unrest in Syria is not an
uprising but a Qatari-instigated aggression
designed to dominate the country and ensure Qatari
access to the Mediterranean Sea for its gas
export. However, this argument can be regarded as
a conspiracy theory. [6]

LS:
Are the discovered energy resources in the Eastern
Mediterranean and Levantine Basin also of interest
here?

GM: The untapped
natural gas finds are extremely important for
Israel, which will no longer have to rely on the
insecure supply of gas from Egypt. The discovered
gas reserves are so huge that Israel can not only
achieve energy independence but will also benefit
from lucrative export deals. Further gas and even
oil reserves are expected to be discovered in the
offshore areas of Syria and Lebanon. [7]
Nevertheless, the newly discovered resources have
no direct impact on the present crisis in Syria.

LS: When it comes to the
Western powers, are they especially intended to
weaken the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis?

GM: There are numerous
statements from the US government which stress the
geostrategic importance of the ousting of the
Syrian regime so that both Iran and Hezbollah in
Southern Lebanon will loose their most important
ally. The Iranian and Syrian supply of military
equipment to Hezbollah will no longer be possible.
The weakening of the military force of this Shiite
organization means that its impact on the power
structure of Lebanon and especially its ability to
attack Israel will dramatically decline. [8] The
fall of Bashar Al-Assad will also weaken the
influence of Russia and China in the Middle East
and strengthen the role of the US and Saudi Arabia
in this region.

LS: Are we
currently experiencing a "Balkanisation of Syria"
or a "Balkanisation of the Middle East" in
general?

GM: During the last
decades Syria has been a secular state with a
strong focus on pan-Arabism. Now the ethnic and
religious frictions have become a dominant factor
and threaten the unity of the Syrian state. The
worst case scenario would indeed be a
"Balkanization" for Syria, which means that the
country is split into a northeastern Kurdish state
providing a safe haven for the PKK [Kurdistan
Workers' Party] and a nightmare for Turkey, an
Alawite state in the western mountains and the
coastal area, a tiny Druze enclave in the south,
and a Sunni state in central Syria. Only the last
one would probably have sufficient economic
potential to exist on the long run.

Other
experts suggest a "Lebanonization" scenario that
pins down the Syrian army and weakens the central
government in Damascus. [9] The model of an
"Iraqization" of Syria might also have chances to
become reality, with several autonomous or
semi-autonomous regions. Similar demands are also
raised in the oil-rich east of Libya, where large
parts of the population no longer want to be
dominated by the center of the political power in
Tripolitania, the western region of Libya.

LS: Do we see in Syria a
similar situation as earlier in Libya or is it
very different?

GM: The
situation in Libya was completely different.
Gaddafi's military forces were far too weak to
resist the combined military power of NATO [North
Atlantic Treaty Organization] which was authorized
by the UN Security Council to intervene in Libya.
Large parts of the population and almost the
entire east of Libya opposed the authoritarian
regime so that foreign advisers were able to move
freely in this part of the country, support the
oppositional fighter groups with heavy weapons and
train them how to use the sophisticated military
equipment.

Bashar Al-Assad, on the other
hand, can rely on the excellently trained and
best-equipped Republican Guards and the 4th
Armored Division - elite troops who are almost
entirely Alawites. The Syrian air force and in
particular the air defense force are equipped with
the latest Russian military technology. A recent
analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology came to the conclusion that the Syrian
air defense is five times more sophisticated than
[former Libyan leader Muammar] Gaddafi's. [10]

A military offensive by foreign troops to
oust Bashar al-Assad would be an extremely risky
and expensive operation. In addition, there is no
chance that Russia and China will accept a UN
resolution for a military intervention in Syria.
Under these circumstances, the US, France and the
UK have so far only resorted to training
opposition fighters on Turkish territory close to
the northwestern border of Syria and to supplying
them with communication means and other non-lethal
equipment. At the same time, Iran is using
civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and
large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace
to help Syria crush the uprising, according to a
Western intelligence report seen by Reuters. The
Iraqi government, however, denies that such
flights are taking place.

LS: We know that forces of
al-Qaeda are fighting on Syrian soil. Ed Husain,
Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations, wrote about this:

By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA)
battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and
ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West,
rebel forces are increasingly demoralized ...
Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve
morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline,
religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq,
funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and
most importantly, deadly results. In short, the
FSA needs al-Qaeda now. [11]

That's
quite a statement after more than 10 years of the
so called "War on Terror", isn't it?

GM: Indeed! There are many
similar reports - among others from the Eastern
Euphrates valley near the Iraqi border - where
opposition fighters had for several months tried
in vain to take over garrisons from the Syrian
army. At last, they asked an al-Qaeda group for
support. As a result of their attacks the army
withdrew from this base within a few days.

The al-Qaeda fighters and jihadis are not
only from Arab countries, especially from Iraq,
Libya, the Arabian Peninsula, but also from
Pakistan and include even radical Islamists from
European countries. Their number is rapidly
growing. This is the major reason why the US
government has been so reluctant to supply the
opposition fighters with surface-to-air missiles,
which might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda or
Hezbollah. It has only recently been reported that
the Free Syrian Army acquired 14 Stinger missiles.
So far, however, it has not been confirmed that
these weapons were used to attack Syrian fighter
planes and helicopter gunships [12].

LS: What kind of importance
has it that al-Qaeda is a Sunni terrorist
organization?

GM: About 70%
of the Syrian population are Sunnis. Many of them
regard the ruling Alawites not as real Muslims.
The same applies to al-Qaeda, which demands that
all Muslims should unite in order to eradicate the
Alawite "infidels". However, this does not mean
that al-Qaeda and other foreign jihadis are
supported by all Syrian Sunnis. Quite the
contrary. The vast majority is rejecting both the
extremist views and the intervention of radical
foreign Islamists.

LS: It is
said that Syria's ruler, Bashar al-Assad, could
use chemical weapons. What is your view on that?

GM: The regime has assured
that it will never use chemical or biological
weapons. This statement can be regarded as
reliable because the use of weapons of mass
destruction or even the movement of such weapons
would mean "crossing the red line", as President
Obama threatened. A massive military intervention
against the Syrian government would be the
consequence [13]

However, there are
detailed reports that NATO powers in coordination
with Saudi Arabia are preparing a fake attack with
chemical weapons in southern Syria for which the
Assad regime will be blamed in order to justify a
massive international invasion. [14]

LS: Do we observe in the
Syrian conflict certain developments like under a
microscope: the US can no longer afford
financially some certain types of adventures and
has reached the limits of its influence, while the
Russians and the Chinese don't want to be told
what to do in the Middle East?

GM: The financial aspect is
very important from the perspective of the US
government, but there is also President Obama's
promise "to bring our boys back home". A new
American involvement in another war is extremely
unpopular, especially during the present
presidential election campaign. Concerning Russia
and China, they have important geostrategic
interests in Syria. There is no compelling reason
why they should give up this comfortable and
influential position.

LS:
With regard to the external influences, it was
written recently that European and Arab states pay
high government officials, if they turn away from
Assad. [15] Your thoughts on this?

GM: This applies not only to
leading representatives of the Syrian regime, but
especially to members of the Syrian army. Qatar
and Saudi Arabia have publicly announced that they
will spend at least US$300 million to pay the
salaries of the oppositional fighters and also
financial incentives to motivate soldiers from all
ranks to defect from the military forces and to
join the oppositional troops. Under these
circumstances, it is really astounding that only
so few officers, generals and leading members of
the regime have defected until now. This
underlines how stable the power of the government,
the military and the security services still is.

LS: How would a European
attitude look like be considered worthy of
support?

GM: Let me start by
explaining why the present European attitude is
not worthy of support. The leading governments of
the EU have discarded a political solution of the
Syrian conflict and opted instead for the - at
least indirect - support for a military ousting of
the Assad regime. They are co-operating in
particular with the Syrian National Council (SNC),
which is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and
which consists mainly of Syrians who have lived
for a long time in Western countries, especially
in the US. These people want to rule post-Assad
Syria, but they are by no means accepted by the
majority of the population living in Syria.

In Berlin, for example, the German
Institute for International and Security Affairs
(Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) in
cooperation with the US Institute of Peace
arranged the facilities for members of the Syrian
opposition and international experts to meet in
order to plan for "The Day After". [16] The result
is an agenda to create a new political system in
Syria according to Western democratic standards
and values after the fall of the present regime.

This plan was designed without any
knowledge about the future distribution of power
among the various forces that might be involved in
the toppling of the government, and with only a
little participation of the numerous oppositional
groups inside Syria. It is not surprising that
such a plan was rejected by members of the inner
Syrian opposition as an "academic exercise" with
no relevance at a time when the outcome of the
Syrian crisis is still completely open. The same
applies to various government-sponsored committees
planning the Syrian future in Paris, Rome,
Istanbul and Cairo.

The frequent demands
that the extremely heterogeneous opposition should
unite have turned out to be futile. This applies
also to the latest attempt of the French President
Francois Hollande, who also offered to recognize a
new Syrian government-in-exile. The proposal was
immediately rejected by the US government as
untimely due to the lack of unity among the
opposition groups.

Much more relevant for
the present development of the crisis is the
proposal to establish a safe haven for Syrian
refugees. This was first demanded by the Turkish
government and was recently supported by the
French president. At present, more than 80,000
Syrians have arrived in refugee camps in Turkey;
100,000 have been declared by the Erdogan
government as the maximum number of refugees to be
accepted on Turkish territory. Additional refugees
have to be accommodated in a safe buffer zone on
the Syrian side of the border with Turkey. The
same has been proposed along the Jordanian border.

At first sight such a demand might appear
to be rather harmless and unproblematic, involving
only a limited military intervention. However, the
establishment of a safe buffer zone in Syria can
only be achieved by a full-scale war of NATO and
allied troops from Arab countries against the
strong Syrian armed forces. To protect the
refugees in the safe haven, a no-fly zone has to
be established, which can only be controlled after
NATO has gained air superiority over the total
Syrian territory.

This would involve the
destruction of the Syrian air force with about 400
fighter planes and the huge arsenal of highly
sophisticated anti-air craft missiles. The size,
expenditure and duration of such an intervention
would be tremendous as the MIT analysis showed.
[10].

One has also to keep in mind that in
legal terms such an attack could be carried out
under the rather controversial international norm
of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). But its
application has to be approved by a resolution of
the UN Security Council, where a veto from Russia
and China can be taken for granted.

Coming
back to the question about the position which
should be supported: the most sensible position
and the only one that would allow a peaceful
solution is still the [Kofi] Annan plan [proposed
by the former United Nations secretary general]
involving not only the opposition and their
supporters, but also the governments in Damascus
and Teheran in the negotiation about the future
development of Syria. However, there is no chance
that this proposal will be accepted by the
opposition in exile and its supporters in the US,
the Arab League, Turkey and the EU.

LS: What do you think about
the helping hand that the Bundesnachrichtendienst
[BND - Germany's foreign intelligence agency] is
giving to the rebels?

GM:
The German newspaper Bild had revealed that
members of the BND stationed on ships near the
Syrian and Lebanese coast and at the NATO base
near Adana collect intelligence on the movement of
Syrian government troops and share this
information with the forces of the Free Syrian
Army. [17] The same applies to agents of the
British intelligence service based in Cyprus and
also to the activities of US intelligence agents
and spy satellites.